HAIR CULTURE

the system

ode to our natural hair

Photo by Tonja E. Betts, Expressionist Art

plaited-stack seeks acquittal.
part it down in the middle.
it’s a critical, a spiritual, an anti-political,

yet, political integer,
a historical ligature.
them inquisitors & mimickers & industry limiters

want a slice of its capital,
want a piece of its magical.
catch it perch in discussions & re-emerge in the capitol.

it’s diverse in the brittle,
it’s complex as a riddle,
it’s been caught in the fables, & it’s a prey of the fiddle.

scalp — seborrheic — on chronic
soothes in aloe & tonic
with occasional/phase(nal) micro-bits of bionic.

it’s a flocculent cape,
it’s a snap on the nape,
it’s expressionists’ cleverest of an infinite shape.

it’s the movement of mettle.
it’s a poet unsettled.
it’s a barely-there or long or asymmetrical petal.